Theatre should have been opera house (From Echo)

Theatre should have been opera house

6:00pm Friday 7th January 2011 in Memories By Tom King

A GRIPPING suspense drama is currently playing at the Palace Theatre in Westcliff. Everyone watching it is on the edge of their seats.

Lottery Grant Application involves the fate of a 100-year-old lady. Will she enjoy the birthday party of a lifetime to celebrate the occasion, or will she be left alone in the dark?

The lady is the Palace herself, 100 years old at the end of next year. What better way to celebrate the centenary of a theatre than with a specially-commissioned play?

The launch of the centenary project was announced in December 2008. Plans were drawn up for a community play, acted out by a huge cast drawn from the people of Southend. They would perform in a dramatic saga that told the story of the theatre and the people involved with it.

The first stage of the project was put in the hands of local author Rachel Lichtenstein, who set about gathering material, notably reminiscences from those with personal memories of the Palace.

“I plan to use the voices of local people to tell the story,” said Rachel at the time.

The research file is now bulging at the seams. It awaits the touch of a skilled playwright to breathe life into the material. First, though, the unwritten play requires something even more basic, a budget.

“A play like this is an expensive thing to stage, and it needs financial support to commission a script and make the whole thing feasible,” explains Emily Malcolm, communities and education manager at HQ Theatres, the Palace’s operator.

The Palace has applied to the Heritage Lottery Fund for an undisclosed sum, and awaits its judgment. If subject matter is any persuader, the Palace play ought to be a sure bet for funding.

Its story is the history of Southend itself in a microcosm. And what a history. The theatre’s fortunes have seen more dramatic ups and downs than any Adventure Island roller-coaster.

The Palace was actually planned as an opera house, with financial support from local estate agents. The idea was to give Westcliff an extra sense of refinement, distinguishing it from the more “vulgar” Southend with its music halls and nickelodeons.

The large private boxes and the elaborate arty decoration in the auditorium are legacies of this scheme. By the time of opening, however, the grand opera house had swallowed its pride, and become a cinema, catering for the explosive rise in film-going.

In 1922, the most outstanding figure in the Palace’'s history entered the stage. She was the dynamic and public-spirited Mrs Gertrude Mouillot, a successful lady entrepreneur in an age when such figures were rare and still frowned on. If the community play is in search of a hero, she is the obvious candidate.

Under Mrs Mouillot, the Palace pursued a more highbrow role. Touring companies led by illustrious names such as Sir Henry Irving and Dame Sybil Thorndyke were invited to stage week-long runs. Probably none of them dared turn down the formidable Mrs Mouillot.

By the end of the Thirties, the Palace had become the last surviving live theatre in Southend. The outbreak of war in 1939 did nothing to diminish this role. The show went on, even during bombing raids.

Then in 1942 came the defining moment of the Palace’s history, when Mrs Mouillot presented the theatre as a free gift to the council and people of Southend.

The exact reason for this gesture has always been a matter of dispute. It has been said the theatre was on its knees financially, and the donation was a desperate attempt by Mrs Mouillot to keep her beloved Palace alive.

Yet box office takings, boosted by new audiences drawn from the thousands of Navy and other service people billeted in Southend, had reached exceptional heights.

Whatever the circumstances, this was the moment when the Palace gained the role it has never lost since – a community theatre.

After the war, the Palace became a repertory theatre, with a resident team of actors appearing in a different play each week. The system provided an apprenticeship for young actors, and many performers who cut their teeth at the Palace went on to become familiar figures on TV.

The roll-call of those who appeared included one future megastar, Piers Brosnan. In the stalls, another big name of the future, the young Helen Mirren, gained her first glimpse of theatreland.

During this period, the Palace’s Christmas pantomimes became legendary throughout the theatrical profession. They featured in succession two of the greatest Dames in theatrical history, Clarkson Rose, and his student, Alexander Bridge.

Against this background, however, the Palace often found itself struggling to survive as a viable operation, and much of the gutsiest drama in recent years has taken place offstage. Since 1969, the theatre has closed no less than four times.

On each occasion, strong home-grown protest movements lobbied passionately on the Palace’s behalf, enlisting the likes of Roy Hudd and Helen Mirren to the cause. It was a sign of the deep affection in which the theatre is held within the Southend community. It is this, above all, that has ensured its survival as a working theatre, 100 years after it was built.

As with that other great Southend institution, the pier, the Palace story is the tale of a survivor. The Palace can take rejection by the National Lottery Fund in its stride. But it would be a sad missed opportunity not to stage the long pageant of the Palace on the stage where it all happened.

Brosnan was a Palace regular

AT the time, nobody seems to have noticed the unknown young London-Irishman who became a regular on the Palace stage between 1975 and 1978.

Piers Brosnan, was freshly graduated from drama school, and like most young actors at the start of their careers, pushing hard for any work he could find.

As part of this touting process, he presented his CV to theatre bosses around the Home Counties.

One of those who responded was Chris Dunham, artistic director of the Palace from 1975 to 1999.

“We had a pool of actors we used on a semi-regular basis, and he was on the list for two or three years,” Chris recalled in 1995, after Piers Brosnan was cast as James Bond and became a household name. “I tended to employ him for light comedy roles.”

A typical one was the second male lead in a production of a mildly raunchy romp called Funny Peculiar. In the principal role, Dunham cast Paul Henry.

Unlike Brosnan, he was familiar to the public, thanks to his long-running appearance in a long-forgotten soap opera called Crossroads.

“Piers’s personal charm and his good looks were obvious,” said Chris. “It would be nice to say I spotted his star potential, but to be honest, he didn’t make a big personal impression. The chief quality about him was his enthusiasm, but I wouldn’t have marked him out as tomorrow’s big name.”

In 1995, the Echo set out to track down anyone who could recall watching one of Brosnan’s performances. Some recalled seeing plays such as Funny Peculiar at the Palace, but nobody could specifically remember him in any of the roles.

Brosnan, by contrast, has had only good things to say about Westcliff. He told his biographer York Membery his time at the Palace had been “happy” and “professionally useful”.